Network devices, e.g., switches, routers, and filters, play an important role in data communications. Countless amounts of data are transferred as data packets transmitted over different networks across the world. Each data packet must be channeled from its source to its destination, and network devices play an important role in directing the traffic. In order to limit latency, it is important that network device can route traffic efficiently and accurately.
There are many different components within network devices. One component found in some network routers is a routing table. A routing table stores handling instructions, e.g., a next-hop destination or an egress port identifier, for data packets that are to be routed through the device. Each entry in the table corresponds to a route. These routing tables are sometimes stored using volatile integrated circuit memory, e.g., SRAMs. Generally, routing tables have limited capacities. In order to stay within the limited capacity, it is important that network devices store a minimal amount of data for each route in the routing table.